This is a True Story – Only the Facts Have Been Changed

Kingdom of Heaven also distorts history beyond all recognition. The “hundred-year truce” between the Christian and Muslim armies is a figment of their imagination. The warfare throughout the 12th Century was incessant.

The depiction of the Knight’s Templar as a band of religious fanatics trying to shatter the truce and provoke war with the Muslims by attacking caravans, is a total fabrication. (…) Attacking caravans is what the founder of Islam, Muhammad, engaged in regularly. As did his handpicked apostles, the Caliphas. The Knights Templar were formed primarily to protect travellers from the attacks of the Muslim army. In fact it was the slaughter of Christian pilgrims, by Muslim armies, in violation of earlier agreements of safe passage, that precipitated the crusades in the first place.

The central figure of this film, Sir Balian, is a historical figure, who did in fact play a critical role in the defence of Jerusalem in 1187, but the filmscript distorts his character and role beyond all recognition. First of all, Balian was not a blacksmith, nor did his wife commit suicide, nor was he illegitimate, nor raised as a commoner. His father, Balian the Old (not Godfrey as in the movie), had three sons, all legitimate : Hugh, Baldwin and Balian. Balian never had to travel to the Holy Land, because he grew up as part of the nobility there. Balian was married to royalty long before the events portrayed in the film, and he was not at all romantically involved with the Princess Sybilla.

In Kingdom of Heaven, Balian is portrayed as questioning whether God exists, although according to the historical records it is clear that Balian was a dedicated Christian who took his faith very seriously. Nor did Balian desert the defence of the Holy Land following the fall of Jerusalem. Far from returning to France, Balian proceeded to Beirut in Lebanon which he helped fortify against Muslim invasion. He was present with Richard the Lionhearted at the signing of the peace with Saladin, which secured safe passage for Christian pilgrims and recognised crusader control over the 90 mile stretch of coastline from Tyre to Jaffa.

According to Kingdom of Heaven, the real hero in the story is the famous Muslim general, Saladin. (…) The film has uncritically accepted, and embellished, the legends about Saladin beyond what the historical record would support. (…) Far from having war forced upon him, Saladin initiated the conflict by declaring a Jihad against the Christians. He swept throughout Palestine capturing more than 50 crusader castles in two years.

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In the film, Saladin is portrayed as being most gracious in allowing the defenders of Jerusalem safe passage. In fact after the negotiated surrender of Jerusalem, which the Patriarch of Jerusalem initiated, Saladin demanded that every man, women and child in Jerusalem pay a ransom for his or her freedom or face the grim prospect of Islamic slavery.

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Twisted Theology

The theology in Kingdom of Heaven is also all wrong. The film depicts some monk standing by the roadside repeating : “To kill an infidel is not murder it is the path to heaven !” As any student of the Bible would be able to tell you, neither the concept nor those words appear anywhere in the Christian Bible. However, as any student of the Quran should be able to inform you, that is exactly what the Islamic doctrine of Jihad teaches.

At one point early in the film as Muslims bow in prayer towards Mecca, Balian comments : “You allow them to pray ?” A knight sneers and answers : “As long as they pay their taxes !” In fact the crusaders never required any extra taxes of Muslims in order to allow them to pray. That is the Islamic doctrine and practice of Jizya. To this day Muslim governments require Jizya – tribute taxes – of dhimmi’s (Jews and Christians under their Islamic rule).

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Insults to Intelligence

Here we are expected to believe that : Balian is grieving his wife’s death, yet he does not even attend to her burial ; that Balian raised a commoner, trained only as a blacksmith, from France, could within days of arriving in Palestine be teaching the local people how to practice agriculture and dig wells in the desert ; and that this blacksmith with no military training could know more about siege weapons and military strategy that all the knights and military professionals concentrated in the Holy Land put together !

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The fictional, adulterous relationship depicted between Balian and Princess Sybilla strains all credibility. As does Balian’s presumed ethical objections against executing the venomous and bloodthirsty husband of his presumed adulterous interest ! Apparently justice and the avoiding of a disastrous war were not as important as his adulterous affections.

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Crusade Against Christianity

Producer Ridley Scott, and scriptwriter William Monahan, obviously hate Christianity. But, just in case any viewers lack the discernment to detect the unveiled anti-Christian hostility and prejudice, which permeates the entire movie, Ridley Scott, has gone on record as stating : “Balian is an agnostic, just like me.” Of course there was no such thing as agnosticism in the 12th Century, especially not amongst crusaders. Just in case anyone misunderstood the motivations behind his movie, Ridley Scott has been quoted as saying : “If we could just take God out of the equation, there would be no fucking problem !”

Frustrated with the ways in which the Crusades have been used and distorted, a few historians are now attempting to close the yawning gap between the academy and general readers. (…)

Take, for example, what might be called the Myth of the Greedy Younger Son. This myth holds that an increase in population, the development of feudal primogeniture, and a series of bad harvests created a situation in medieval Europe where thousands of well-trained and land-hungry warriors were milling about with nothing to do. Rather than have them make trouble at home, Pope Urban II convinced them to carve out territories for themselves in the faraway Muslim world. (…) New research has definitively shown that Crusaders were predominantly the first sons of Europe : wealthy, privileged, and pious. Crusading was extremely expensive and more than a few noble families risked bankruptcy in order to take part. They did so for medieval, not modern, reasons. Crusading for them was an act of love and charity by which, like the Good Samaritan, they were aiding their neighbors in distress. Muslim warriors had conquered eastern Christians, taken their lands, and in some cases killed or enslaved them. The Crusader believed it was his duty to right that wrong.

The Greedy Younger Son is not the only myth historians have discarded. It may surprise some to learn that the Crusades were almost never profitable, since booty was so scarce. Or that the Christian settlers in the so-called Crusader Kingdom were not themselves Crusaders. Or that the Crusades met all the criteria of a just war, especially in their defensive nature. Or that the Crusades had nothing at all to do with colonialism. Or that the Crusades were in no way wars of conversion.If your image of Western civilization relies on a depiction of the Crusades as an insane and bloodthirsty attack on a peaceful and sophisticated Muslim world, then you are not going to like what recent historians have to say.

Myth # 3 : When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 they massacred every man, woman, and child in the city until the streets ran ankle deep with the blood.

This is a favorite used to demonstrate the evil nature of the Crusades. Most recently, Bill Clinton in a speech at Georgetown cited this as one reason the United States is a victim of Muslim terrorism. It is certainly true that many people in Jerusalem were killed after the Crusaders captured the city. But this must be understood in historical context. The accepted moral standard in all pre-modern European and Asian civilizations was that a city that resisted capture and was taken by force belonged to the victorious forces. That included not just the buildings and goods, but the people as well. That is why every city or fortress had to weigh carefully whether it could hold out against besiegers. If not, it was wise to negotiate terms of surrender. In the case of Jerusalem, the defenders had resisted right up to the end. They calculated that the formidable walls of the city would keep the Crusaders at bay until a relief force in Egypt could arrive. They were wrong. When the city fell, therefore, it was put to the sack. Many were killed, yet many others were ransomed or allowed to go free. (…) It is worth noting that in those Muslim cities that surrendered to the Crusaders the people were left unmolested, retained their property, and allowed to worship freely. As for those streets of blood, no historian accepts them as anything other than a literary convention. Jerusalem is a big town. The amount of blood necessary to fill the streets to a continuous and running three-inch depth would require many more people than lived in the region, let alone the city.